Project Parore patrons Rosalie Smith and Peter Maddison with the catchment plan for the Te Mania Stream, near Katikati.
Project Parore patrons Rosalie Smith and Peter Maddison with the catchment plan for the Te Mania Stream, near Katikati.
Rosalie Smith and Peter Maddison, two of Katikati's foremost conservationists, are Project Parore's first patrons.
"The contributions Peter and Rosalie have each made to conservation over so many decades are outstanding," says Lawrie Donal of Project Parore.
"They have been trailblazers who continue to be passionate about the environment. It is an honour for Project Parore to have them as our patrons".
Project Parore has evolved from the Uretara Estuary Managers, an environmental group Smith helped found in 2004. In 2007 she was awarded a Queen Service Medal for her services to agricultural journalism and the community.
Rosalie Smith of Katikati was awarded a Queens Service Medal for services to agricultural journalism and to the community in 2007.
The same year the Uretara Estuary Managers won the Ministry for the Environment's Green Ribbon Award, which celebrates outstanding contributions by individuals, communities and organisations to protect and manage New Zealand's environment.
An entomologist, Maddison - who moved to the Bay of Plenty in 2006 - is a founding member of and a scientific adviser to Project Parore, and in 2021 was awarded membership of the New Zealand Order of Merit for his services to conservation.
Smith was appointed Bay of Plenty Times' Katikati correspondent in 1969, later becoming its rural reporter and winning awards for her writing, including the Rongo Award from the Guild of Agricultural Journalists in the 1980s.
In 1984 she became the founding editor of the NZ Kiwifruit Journal and helped the avocado industry start Avoscene, which she edited for seven years. Smith has been a member of and written books for Open-Air Art, and an active member of the Katikati Twilight Concert committee.
When, in the 1980s, a proposal to clear fell the native forests of the Kaimai Mamaku Forest Park and convert it to plantation pines was mooted, Smith was spurred to join those who successfully opposed the idea.
Dr Peter Maddison and farmer Rick Burke check for water clarity at the Te Mania stream near Katikati.
Maddison was born in Coventry in England's Midlands and studied entomology at a university in London. He spent around 15 years working for the United Nations on insect pests and quarantine in the Pacific, based in Samoa, Fiji, Tonga and Papua New Guinea.
When funding for his project ran out, Peter joined the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research, later Landcare Research, at Mount Albert in Auckland, working on Pacific trade-related quarantine issues and on New Zealand insects.
In 1992 Peter was elected to the Waitakere City Council and for six years served with mayor Sir Bob Harvey. He was the national executive of the Forest and Bird Society for 15 years, including four years as president, and is a distinguished life member of the society.
When he moved to Katikati, Maddison became involved with UEM and Project Parore, using his extensive knowledge and rigorous scientific research to seek out and catalogue exactly what creatures are living in the catchments. Some of this work involved the public in ecological surveys, called BioBlitzes.
• To find out more about Project Parore go to: www.projectparore.nz
